Leadership award for bringing ranchers and environmentalists together

If you’re a hiker — and especially if you have a dog — you’ve probably noticed that much of the open land in California has cows grazing on it. You and your misbehaving dog aren’t the only ones enjoying these open spaces, either: Most of the state’s water supply flows through rangeland and most endangered species — and especially nesting golden eagles — spend time on it.

But agricultural lands are being gobbled up by development. With 1.2 of the Bay Area’s 1.6 million acres of rangeland unprotected, both ranchers and the public are looking for ways to preserve the open space, habitat, and locally-raised food they provide.

The California Rangeland Trust has played a vital part of this effort, by effectively liaising between environmentalists — who want to preserve the land as habitat for wildlife — and ranchers, who want to preserve the land to feed their cows. Founded in 1998, the group has set aside 200,000 acres, and its CEO, Nita Vail, was just recognized with a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award.

The main tool the Trust uses to preserve wildlife corridors and open grazing lands is conservation easements. But even as I spoke to Vail last week — as she drove an empty horse trailer back from an errand — farmers and ranchers were in Sacramento, pleading with the governor to restore funding to the Williamson Act, one the state’s important incentives for farmers and ranchers to leave land undeveloped.

Historically wildlife, specifically predators, and livestock don’t mix. Is there a solution to that problem?

Well, we don’t see the friction in California that you might in other states where there are wolves. Most ranchers want to see wildlife. There is some predetation — you have mountain lions eating deer, for example — but it’s not just about predators and cattle. The bottom line here is that population is increasing, and we have more pressure on the land. The tech boom has led an increase in people buying land as ranchettes, which carve up the space.

Would you call yourself an environmentalist?

Yes, I would.

How did you become one?

Any rancher that owns a ranch or leases it cares deeply about the land because if land isn’t healthy, the cattle won’t be healthy. Most ranchers are environmentalists.

But historically, environmentalists and ranchers haven’t always been on the same side.

There’s a funny story. The California Rangeland Coalition was created [in 2005] with the former Pacific Region U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director, Steve Thompson. It got started because his staff would tell him that ranchers would say We can’t get along with these environmentalists; we just want healthy pasture. And the environmentalists would say We can’t get along with the ranchers; we just want these open spaces. He realized the goals were the same; they were just using different words.

We all agree that protecting rangeland is important. We might have different reasons, but the goal is the same.